Hoyer Calls Connection To Schilling’s PED Accusations ‘Preposterous’

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(WSCR) In an interview with 670 The Score Thursday, Cubs general manager Jed Hoyer denied encouraging Curt Schilling to use performance enhancing drugs in 2008 when the former pitcher’s career was coming to an end.

According to Boston.com, Schilling told ESPN Radio’s Colin Cowherd Wednesday: “At the end of my career, in 2008 when I had gotten hurt, there was a conversation that I was involved in, in which it was brought to my attention that this is a potential path I might want to pursue.”

When asked who specifically was involved, Schilling said: “Former members of the organization. They’re no longer there.”

Both Cubs President of Baseball Operations Theo Epstein and Hoyer were members of the Red Sox organization in 2008.

“The first I ever heard of that was this morning when I saw it, so clearly, no, it didn’t ring true to me at all,” Hoyer said Thursday on The McNeil & Spiegel Show on 670 The Score. “I can tell you it would be preposterous that Theo or I would be involved in that. So I can comment for the two of us. I obviously wasn’t there. I don’t know the story he’s talking about so I can’t comment on the rest of it. I can tell you certainly it wasn’t Theo or me.”

Schilling never directly accused Epstein or Hoyer of being involved, but fair or not, their names were immediately linked because of their prominent status as former members of the Red Sox organization.

“It was an incredibly uncomfortable conversation because it came up in the midst of a group of people,” Schilling told ESPN Radio. “The other people weren’t in the conversation, but they could clearly hear the conversation, and it was suggested to me that at my age, and in my situation, why not, what did I have to lose? Because if I wasn’t going to get healthy, it didn’t matter, and if I did get healthy, great.”

Hoyer responded Thursday by saying he has never been involved in a direct conversation about a player using PEDs.

“In my position going from intern to baseball operations all the way to assistant GM and GM it’s never something I’ve ever been confronted with, no,” Hoyer said. “But it is something that is a constant discussion in baseball because whether it’s a guy tests positive or there’s suspicions, it’s something people talk about, but it’s never something I’ve ever been directly confronted with.”